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INFRASTRUCTURE

Road to Recovery

The roads sector growth and economy go hand
in hand. It is expected that the government

would streamline a number of areas in the
coming days leading to the overall revival,
states Bovin Kumar, COO, Cube Highways and
Transportation Assets Advisors (P) Ltd.

uring the lockdown over situation arisen because of this might come up beyond 80% of the
the last couple of months, pandemic is beyond provisions of normal traffic. Depending on COVID
entire road sector has any contracts. Probably no contracts -19 situation, in a couple of months, it
lost out on different were framed considering such an might even recover to almost normal.
Dfronts, viz BOT projects extreme situation. No one would
lost in terms of Toll Revenue, expenses have visualised such situations while New Way of Working
on operation and maintenance, and framing these contracts. The relief Corona has definitely changed
projects under construction have lost in package announced so far is not the way we work. The lockdowns
terms of inventory costs of construction adequate considering the type of have helped people to explore
materials, labour/staff salaries & challenges being faced by the road the other tools to streamline their
machinery hire charges. Due to the sector. Therefore, there is a need to work. Unified communication tools
long duration of the pandemic, cash come out with relief package beyond like Microsoft teams/Zoom have
flow has become one of the biggest contract provisions. This would not been instrumental in managing the
challenges during this tough time. only help the industry to come out of office work close to normal. It is not
When the things started opening up, crisis but also strengthen the trust of that new technologies have come
migration of labour started increasing the investors. up during this time, but lockdown
the problems of the industry in term of Road sector first to open converted it into a necessity and
availability of the labour. hence the pace of implementation of
As the road sector started opening the technology in all sectors including
The Government has come up much before other sectors, the traffic Government offices has been beyond
with relief packages to various volume is on the path of recovery. As expectations. Acceptability of work
sectors. In case of road sector, of now traffic has come up beyond from home has increased, online
the reliefs announced by the 60%. Though it is difficult to guess transactions have increased. This
Government are mainly as per force how the situation would develop transformation is going to improve
majeure provisions in the concession over couple of months, yet it appears the efficiency all around and would
agreements. However, gravity of that over the next few months, traffic help the country in a big way.

40 April-May 2020 / TrafficInfraTech www.trafficinfratech-com-500653.hostingersite.com